


Mission: In Progress

by A_chaotic_person



Series: The Paparazzi Thing [3]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fluff, Gen, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Tony Stark Coparenting Peter Parker, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, carol danvers is an accomplice, he's a photOGRAPHER okay, several others are there but I didn't bother to tag them, tried to only tag if they talked more often
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22567003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_chaotic_person/pseuds/A_chaotic_person
Summary: "It actually started with that picture of Daredevil and Clint in the dumpster. Peter had kept it because he’d thought it was funny; not because he wanted to show other people. Except.Then he had a picture of Captain-perfect-golden-boy-America being pinned to the wall, lips swollen from the heavy kiss the Winter Soldier had just laid on him. (Was he even still called the Winter Soldier? Was he supposed to be called White Wolf now?)Peter, both thrilled and terrified to have evidence of something like that, had done the dumbest thing he could and, instead of destroying the picture, had put it with the other."---------How Peter accidentally (and then purposefully) came to have a blackmail drawer.
Relationships: Michelle Jones & Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones & Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark, peter parker/michelle jones (hinted)
Series: The Paparazzi Thing [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1535363
Comments: 19
Kudos: 517





	Mission: In Progress

**Author's Note:**

> Recommended you read the previous parts in the series first.

Okay. Peter really should re-examine himself if he thought it was a good idea to keep drawer full of dirt on enhanced people, national icons, Tony Stark, various vigilantes, and super spies (one of which may or may not _literally_ eat him if he stepped out of line. So he was afraid of Natasha, sue him).

(Actually don’t, he was very broke and also stressed all the time. He might cry if someone sued him.)

Oh god, having a blackmail drawer was such a bad idea for someone like him, dorky and full of secrets. Mr. Stark was _still_ holding his Thor impression over him.

Right so. It actually started with that picture of Daredevil and Clint in the dumpster. Peter had kept it because he’d thought it was funny; not because he wanted to show other people. Except.

Then he had a picture of Captain-perfect-golden-boy-America being pinned to the wall, lips swollen from the heavy kiss the Winter Soldier had just laid on him. (Was he even still called the Winter Soldier? Was he supposed to be called White Wolf now?)

Peter, both thrilled and terrified to have evidence of something like that, had done the dumbest thing he could and, instead of destroying the picture, had put it with the other.

“This is a terrible idea,” Peter said to his empty room and (previously) empty drawer, even as he tucked the photos away and subtly webbed the drawer shut.

“This is a terrible idea,” Peter said to Ned and MJ on Monday after an intense retelling of the events that had led up to each picture.

“Amazing.” MJ grinned at the picture of Mr. America and Bucky. “This would be great blackmail material.”

“I knooooooow,” Peter moaned, not sure whether he was using the picture of Hawkeye and Daredevil to hide his face or using his face to hide the picture. “I’m keeping them in one of my desk drawers-”

“Not right now you aren’t.”

“-and it’s webbed shut but it feels so _wrong_ to have something like this that I could hold over their heads.”

“Dude,” Ned whispered loudly, moving in a little closer and generally appearing suspicious. “I see what you’re saying, but like, blackmail on the Avengers would be _so cool_.”

“I’m a little surprised you’ve even made it this far without something up your sleeve, to be honest.”

Peter spluttered. “I’m _nice_! I don’t—I don’t _need_ to have something up my sleeve!”

MJ hummed. “I guess being cute kind of works in you favor, but still you need to- Parker. Parker I’m giving you important information for your blackmailing. Pay attention.”

Peter turned to Ned and raised his hand to the side of his mouth, preventing MJ from reading his lips. _Did she just say I’m cute?_

Ned shrugged but his eyes were wide, and he mouthed back just as exaggeratedly. _I think so??_

Turning back to MJ, Peter was now definitely using the picture to hide his blushing face. He coughed. “Uh, sorry, what’s the advice?”

MJ rolled her eyes, but she didn’t really seem bothered. Maybe she was bored?

So he acquired a safe blackmail drawer, under MJ’s guidance. First, she instructed him to coat the entirety of the inside of the drawer in an old version of his webs. The formula had been scrapped because it didn’t dissolve on its own, which, MJ said, made it perfect for protecting the pictures.

MJ had said that carrying a camera all the time was imperative to acquiring incriminating material. He kind of already did that, but she wanted it to be on and primed for the environment at all times. He thought this was extreme, but Ned had solemnly nodded as she imparted these words of wisdom to him, so Peter supposed he had no choice.

Way to acquire material? Check

Place to store materiel? Yep.

Material? Uhhh… mission in progress.

* * *

It wasn’t hard to catch other heroes doing things that could give Peter leverage. Turns out superheroes and vigilantes are total dumbasses. Who knew?

(Peter knew.)

(He’s a dumbass too. It wasn’t hard to make the connection.)

(MJ made the connection.)

The next time Peter managed to catch a picture of someone, it wasn’t any of the more obviously uncareful people like the Guardians of the Galaxy or Hawkeye (again). It was someone a lot more… dignified. It was-

It was-

“Doctor Strange!?”

Peter stood, gaping in the doorway of the Sanctum Sanctorum he had just been let into. His camera hung from the strap around his neck, but his hands were frozen as though he’d just dropped it. He wanted to panic about his nice camera—it could’ve been damaged in the fumble!—but there wasn’t much room in his head left for that. He was too overcome with shock. What the fuck.

Doctor Strange himself looked equally if not more stunned, clearly not expecting any visitors for quite awhile if the state of his clothes was anything to go by.

“Peter,” the Doctor said, reverting his attire to the cool wizard/sorcerer/whatever garbs he was usually seen in with a snap of his fingers. “What are you doing here?”

_Wow_ , Peter wanted to say. _How do you recover so quickly?_ What came out was more like “Mister Strange—Doctor! Sir. Uh- how- how- why did you-”

“Answers won’t be necessary, Mr. Parker. I’m positive that you don’t need to be telling anyone what you saw here today, either.” Doctor Strange looked more impassive than usual, and his Cloak, hovering behind him rather than wrapped around his shoulders, seemed distinctly pleased.

“Uh- yeah yeah, yeah of course sir, I won’t tell, but-”

Doctor Strange nodded sharply, and promptly left. The Cloak kind of shrugged and made to leave, but Peter stopped it with a tug.

“Could you tell him that the Avengers want him at the compound on Sunday?”

The Cloak pulled itself out of his grasp, it’s air of pleasure having faded back to the unimpressed state Peter usually saw it in. _You’re the Avenger’s message boy now? Dude, get a life_ , it seemed to say, then flew off after Strange.

“Thanks,” Peter said to empty air.

He didn’t notice the pictures he’d managed to steal until after he’d crawled through his window and flopped onto his bed. Two of them were unusably blurry (a third was just blurred enough it’d make a great reaction picture to send to Shuri), though one was in perfect clear condition, and Peter knew instantly where it would go once it was printed out.

Doctor Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme was captured having an argument of some sort with the Cloak while wearing what was undoubtedly a Ravenclaw scarf and robe. He even carried a wand!

Peter covered his grinning mouth, the shock hitting him all over again. _Oh my god_. If not for his apparent paparazzi reflexes granting him this picture, nobody would've _ever_ believed him.

Oh my _god_.

* * *

Peter deliberately sought out the Falcon, despite his attitude towards Peter. The man’s playfully spiteful nature was perfect for gathering blackmail material. Despite this, Peter had to hang around him for three days before he got any sufficiently damming evidence.

Three days. Peter had to endure _three days_ of that man calling him various bug-related nicknames. He didn’t even pay attention when Peter tried to tell him that spiders aren’t bugs!

Whatever. Peter got his material in the end. Sweet, sweet revenge.

As it turned out, Sam was waaaay more spiteful with the Winter Soldier than he was with everyone else, but—and this is the best part—Mr. America usually put on a disappointed face when Sam messed with him.

Sam, Peter discovered, hated that face.

(Also, Sam might be jealous that Mr. America and Bucky were dating. Peter wasn’t sure who he was jealous of, though. MJ and Ned thought this was the part Peter should’ve focused on, but Peter wasn’t there to set Sam up with some potential partners.)

(Maybe later.)

Here’s the thing: Sam messed with Bucky a lot. Like. Literally every time they were near each other. Sure, Bucky messed back, but only when Mr. America wasn’t around.

Bucky pretended that Mr. America’s disappointed face didn’t affect him, but Mr. America was really good at looking disappointed.

Nobody was left standing in the face of Mr. America’s you-have-let-down-not-just-me-but-everyone face.

(The face wasn’t strong enough to convince Peter not to call him Mr. America.)

Anyways.

Sam, willing to risk the Face if it meant he got to harass Bucky, constantly made little jabs regardless of Mr. America’s presence.

Finally, this worked in Peter’s favor.

On Day Three, Peter was hanging out in the biggest kitchen the compound had. The footsteps that approached were definitely those belonging to ex-military men, so Peter, like the incredibly smart maybe-Avenger that he was, slammed Clint’s cookies back into their hiding place and jumped over the island and to the other side of the room.

“Hey guys,” he said to Sam and Bucky through a mouthful of stolen cookies.

“Those bugs you’re eating?”

Peter swallowed. “…no.”

“Ain’t that cannibalism?” Sam leaned over the counter and crossed his arms.

“Wha- even if those _were_ bugs, which, gross no, spiders aren’t bugs!”

“Sure,” Sam said. “You just swat both of ‘em the same way.”

“What’s with the camera?” Bucky asked before Peter could retaliate.

Peter glanced down at his hands. Oh yeah, he did have his camera. For blackmail. _Don’t say that out loud_. “For fun.”

Bucky opened the fridge and pulled out eggs and orange juice, rightfully uninterested. “Uh huh. Just don’t stick it in business it doesn’t belong.” He gave Peter a look that said he remembered his last run in with Peter’s hobby. Oops.

“Yeah, no, don’t worry sir I’m just-” Peter raised his camera for a second as though that finished his sentence.

Luckily, Peter was saved from further embarrassment by Mr. America walking in just then. Peter busied himself with the settings of his camera while the other two men snapped to attention.

“Hey Steve,” Bucky said. “Want an omelet?”

“No omelet for me?” Sam joked.

“Nah, you’re a shit.”

“Bucky,” Mr. America reprimanded.

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” Bucky carried the opened eggs with him to the cabinet to get a pan.

This was a fatal move. While Mr. America was preoccupied getting spices out across the room, back turned, Sam stealthily gave a quick kick to the back of Bucky’s knees. Bucky knocked into the corner of counter he was headed for, and one of the eggs fell to the ground with a _crack_ and sad splatter.

Peter, smart enough to have flash off, took a few pictures of this thrilling turn of events.

“What was that?!” Mr. America said, whirling around to face Bucky, arms laden with spices that he may or may not know what to do with.

Sam, slumped carefully back over the same counter, shrugged. “Bucky’s clumsy.”

“I am no-”

“Bucky’s clumsy,” Peter echoed. Mr. America seemed to accept this and offered to help Bucky clean the egg off the floor.

“Punk,” Bucky said, refusing help. He may also have been addressing everyone in the room. Bucky liked to call people punk a lot.

Sam grinned at Peter.

No time like always to be stupid. Peter flashed the camera screen at Sam and mouthed _Watch yourself_. The resulting look of betrayal and anger on Sam’s face gave Peter whiplash between his own feelings of smugness and fear.

(Peter decided he was more smug than anything, even though MJ called him an idiot for revealing his leverage.)

(Peter kind of liked it when she called him an idiot. It felt kind of special now that she wasn’t scary. Almost like she cared.)

* * *

Not once in a million year would Peter have intended to get some kind of blackmail on Natasha fucking Romanova, the Black Widow herself. Except. _Except_ —he did really want dirt on Shuri, and well….

He was completely willing to be killed and possibly eaten by the Black Widow if it meant he had some kind of ammunition against Shuri. C’mon, she had entirely too many ways to make fun of him—though that was his fault for having approximately no chill—and it was about time he had some revenge, dammit!

Wanda had also ended up in the picture he got, so the whole thing became less of a war between friends (Peter’s attempts to retaliate against Shuri couldn’t really be considered war, but he was letting himself have this) and more of this terrifying secret that could end with him in lots of pain.

Mr. Stark had let Peter come with him on his visit to Wakanda. Why Mr. Stark was visiting Wakanda when he was an ex- and on-call Avenger and not a political figure was beyond Peter, but he was happy for the chance to visit the friend he rarely saw in real life.

Immediately upon arrival, Mr. Stark had gone to seek T’Challa out, leaving Peter to his own devices. He’d wandered for a bit, but went to hide in one of Shuri’s smaller labs when he inevitably received Looks from the Dora Milaje.

This is how he caught them:

Natasha fucking Romanova (Romanoff?? Peter didn’t actually know her last name), using a holo-pen on a board to list times, verbally dictating a place they corresponded to.

Shuri beside her, in front of a map of a section of the building, holo-pen in hand to circle certain areas and label with the times Natasha gave her.

Wanda, hands hovering over two large containers, probably ready to do that cool magic thing to lift them.

Peter, afraid, took a picture and ran.

Later, a picture of Mr. Stark and T’Challa front, center, and noticeably drenched with the Black Widow discreetly high-fiving Wanda and Shuri partially out of frame was added to his camera as well.

Peter shivered and shoved these photos in the back of the drawer and resolve not to look at them, just in case.

* * *

Captain Marvel was the _coolest_ person ever.

Peter had been flipping through the pictures on his nice camera, occasionally looking up to play with the settings and the lighting in the room. He hadn’t been acting suspicious or anything, but Falcon still gave him the stink eye as he passed through the Compound’s common room.

Captain Marvel leaned over the back of the couch; brows furrowed. She tapped the edges of the screen curiously, and he twisted around to peer at her.

“You ever get pictures of anyone ‘round here?”

Peter flushed. “Once or twice.”

Captain Marvel nodded knowingly. “Who’d you catch having sex?”

Peter flung his camera across the room in shock. It was only saved by virtue of a web he tossed out half a second later, and he managed to snatch it out of the air despite not having managed to tear his horrified eyes away from the Captain.

She raised an eyebrow at him.

His ears burned. “No sex, Cap, but I think Bucky was definitely about to do _something_ to Mr. America.” He glanced around the room, just in case anyone else had caught him saying that. God, he was going to have to use an ice pack to get rid of this blush.

“Figured those two had something going on.” Captain Marvel slid over the back of the couch to sit by him and grinned mischievously. “Wanna know where the dumb stuff _really_ happens?”

Peter snuck into the Guardian’s ship with exactly two minutes to spare. Captain Marvel- Carol- Captain Danvers had told him to take one left turn from the main room and walk until he heard the commotion. Sure enough, with twenty-seven seconds left Peter heard the gathered Guardians begin to shush each other.

“Now now, friends, wouldn’t want to miss it.”

“Oof- you just sat on me! Move!”

“Quill just shut your mouth, don’t ruin this one.”

“I’m not- he’s the one who sat on me! Just-”

“You disgrace the teacher, Quill.”

“It’s starting!”

Peter leaned carefully into the room to see the sight: The other Peter squished uncomfortably between the arm of a large, beat-up couch and Thor, who was partially on top of him. Mantis had squeezed herself to fit between Gamora and Groot, hugging her knees to her chest and looking wide eyed at the television they’d wired into the ship. Drax sat stiffly on the floor in front of the couch, but he too stared unflinchingly from the TV.

Peter set his camera to shutter and snapped several pictures of the cozy sight they made. It was cute, but he didn’t know why the Captain had though this was good for blackmail-

“ _Hola, soy_ Dora!”

Holy shit.

Peter needed a video of this, stat.

“We need to go through the _rojo_ gate! _Rojo_ means red! Can you say _rojo_?”

Mesmerized, the Guardians all said “ _rojo_!” in unison.

Peter backed up to get one more shot, satisfied with his video, and bumped into Nebula.

Her eyes bored into him, and he thought _Welp, that’s it. I’m going to be killed by an awesome space assassin_.

She leaned in. _What a way to go_. Peter closed his eyes.

“I think it’s dumb too.”

_Huh?_ His eyes flew open. He stared at her unseeingly. 

“Get one more picture of those dumbasses. Make sure you get the screen in the shot.”

Peter printed three copies of the best pictures he got that day. He made sure Cap got her copy before she left the next day. He didn’t leave a note with Nebula’s, but she nodded at him briefly the next time they saw each other.

* * *

“Hey kid, you’ve been keeping those picture somewhere secure, right?”

Peter looked at Mr. Stark, wide-eyed. “What pictures?”

Mr. Stark rolled his eyes so hard his forehead crinkled. “Bud, you know FRIDAY is always around, right? I know you have at least a few incriminating pictures.”

“…MJ helped me hide them.”

Mr. Stark shuddered. “Well if your scary friend has a hand in it then I want no part of whatever you’re doing.” He started to leave the room, but paused. “Oh, and don’t try anything with me. May and I have been exchanging photos.”

Peter’s stomach dropped. “What kind of photos?” he asked, despite being unfortunately certain of the answer.

A dismissive hand wave. “Oh, family pictures, you know. FRIDAY sometimes takes pictures when you’re being ‘unbearably adorable-’ Pep’s words, not mine.”

Peter felt a blush work its way up his neck. “You said exchange?”

“Oh yeah, your Aunt is remarkably good at sneaking pictures of you, did you know? And of course, some pictures of you as a kid…. You know Pete, I’m truly flattered that you dressed up as Iron Man so many years in a row-”

“Bye, Mr. Stark!” Peter hollered desperately, backing out of the room. He waved his camera around and flapped his free hand meaninglessly. “I gotta- Later!”

“Your ‘Peter tingle’ won’t save you from your Aunt!”

“BYE.”

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, just one more part in the series!  
> ...I have no idea how long it'll take to write, whoops.


End file.
